How a Mining Company Solved an Internal Conflict

A mining company had serious communication problems in their community relations team. This problem persisted, even after several group trainings and coaching sessions. The majority of the team members had great difficulty with one person. This person had even been nicknamed “Don Pesimo” (“Mister Horrible”) because every time they proposed a solution, he would disagree and point out everything that could go wrong with that proposal.MindSonar was filled out by all team members and a workshop was organised explaining Thinking Styles and Graves Drives. At the end of the workshop the team scores were discussed. The team and the leader of the company, who was also present, could clearly see that their predominant Thinking Style was ‘matching’ (focusing at what is good and correct), except for “Don Pésimo”, who scored very high on mismatching (focusing at what is not good and incorrect).Simply explaining to them that their teammate was not a negative person, but rather using a different thinking style, was very helpful. He was relabelled as an internal consultant, being the one person with the ability to show them the dangers and pitfalls they could not see.

Today this person sits at the head of the board of directors when they meet. He has an important role in evaluating both team decisions and team processes.  The MindSonar professional running this project was Mónica Castañeda (Peru). Look her up in the Registry.

Debt Collectors getting Results in a Socially Responsible Way

Flanderijn is a major debt collection agency in the Netherlands. In recent years debt collection has changed. Creditors used to only be interested in getting their money as quickly as possible. Today most creditors feel a social responsibility too. So there has been a change from “When do I get paid?” to “What’s happening with my customer?”

Debt collection is done most successfully by phone. At Flanderijn, on a daily basis, almost 400 employees have telephone contact with the customers of their clients. It is not an easy job. Most people and companies pay their bills. If they don’t, there is some kind of problem. So most of the time the employees work under stress and sometimes they face aggression. That’s why debt collectors are trained frequently. 

Mindsonar is used to get an alignment with the wishes of the client. Every two years Flanderijn management selects their best debt collectors. The ones that not only have a good collection results, but also have a high score on customer satisfaction and debtor satisfaction. These experts are modeled and the Mindsonar results are used to sharpen the content of the trainings.

For example in recent years we have noticed a shift in meta programs from highly internally referenced, very proactive, and procedural to more externally referenced, more reactive and more options oriented. In general criteria changed have from ‘results’ to ‘contact’.

The MindSonar professional running this project was Kees Over de Vest (Netherlands). Look him up in the Registry.

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Enabling a Famous Automobile Brand to find Good Sales People

Selling automobiles in the top segment usually involves several hours of personal contact between a salesperson and a customer. In this segment, personal relationships are an even more important factor than in many other sales situations .

All Dutch salespeople of one a top automobile brand were profiled with MindSonar. A benchmark profile was developed using statistics. Their meta programs and criteria were related to the number of cars they sold per year. The benchmark profile— where different Thinking Styles were given different weights — correlated highly with the number of cars sold.

From then on, all candidates for sales positions were profiled with MindSonar. How similar their profile was to the desired profile partly determined whether or not they were hired. Also, in the current sales force, salespeople who diverted from the desired profile were offered a training course, tailored especially to develop their underdeveloped Thinking Styles.

Subsequently, benchmark profiles were developed for location managers, and service managers too, to be used in hiring and training.

The MindSonar professional running the project was Johan Hoevers (Netherlands). Jaap Hollander did the benchmarks for the location and service managers. Look them up in the Registry.

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Helping Child Care Workers become better Auditors

In the Netherlands, a specific set of quality criteria is used to evaluate day care centres. These criteria are audited once a year by independent institutions. To improve quality, it is also important for the day care centres themselves to do audits internally with their own employees. Quite often this does not happen enough. So what exactly does it take to be a good internal child care auditor? 

A MindSonar Professional investigated two things: first of all what the Thinking Styles of a good auditor are. And secondly, how this profile relates to that of a good child care worker. They already suspected these would be two quite different profiles.

They asked several organisations to tell them who their best Internal auditors were. They profiled these auditors, constructing an benchmark profile. Good auditors were found to score high on the Thinking Styles ‘Visual’ and ‘Information’. They wanted to see what information had been stored about processes. Good child care workers typically had high scores on the Thinking Styles ‘Kinesthetic’ and ‘People’.

So child care workers basically needed to shift their thinking style to be good auditors. The MindSonar Professional built a training program around these two Thinking Styles. They achieved good results with child care workers who were starting auditing work.

The MindSonar professionals running the project was Johan de Haas (Netherlands). Look him up in the Registry.

Dutch Equestrian Team Winning in the Olympics

Olympic Dressage How MindSonar Helped

In 2012 the Dutch equestrian sports people won 20% of all the Dutch Olympic medals in London. Three times silver and one bronze medal.

 Imagine you’re a brilliant rider. To be specific, dressage is your expertise. Day in, day out you are training to be in complete harmony with your horse and to achieve the perfect result on the Olympic Games. You have formed your own staff with an excellent trainer, groom, vet, farrier and so on. You ride and train your horses every day and you’re probably doing all this on your own estate or equestrian center. You’re over twenty-five years old, not single anymore and if you would like to, you may imagine that you also have children.

And then when you’re selected to be in the National team, especially for the Olympic Games, circumstances really change. Now you are a member of the Dutch Dressage Team. You have to deal with the other team members for about ten days. Your own staff is not nearby. You will be staying in the Olympic Village and see and meet all those other top athletes. You have to share a room with another rider of your team. The distance from the Village to the stables is at least 45 minutes.

So how do you deal with this as an individual top athlete? How do you stay focused? What kind of a team will make you feel at your best or beyond this? What do you need from the other team members and what are you willing and or able to give? What is important for you in the context of being part of this Olympic Team? That’s what our coaching program is about: How can this team be the best possible team in this moment in time for every rider?

For example in a team that scores a high average on ‘solo’ you really have to find out how much solo is needed for everyone and when. High score on ‘solo’ means to someone really have a desire to concentrate on their own affairs, a need for working alone, undisturbed by other people. Normally this is not something that people are consciously aware of … they just start feeling annoyed if there’s to much emphasis on doing all kind of things together, like “where do WE have breakfast, lunch and dinner?” “At what time do WE leave for the training?”

Or the difference between the thinking styles ‘global’ and ‘specific’. “How was you’re training?” asks one team member with the thinking ttyle ‘specific’. “Fine” answers the other with thinking style ‘global’. “Hmm”, goes our ‘specific’ thinking rider, “Why being so rude? Why not answering the question, I am really interested in how you’re training was. I think I am not going to ask this again”.  Our ‘Global’ rider doesn’t have a clue of what is happening, because “fine” was how it was, a genuine answer. He’s not thinking any more specific than this.

Understanding and insight in each others thinking styles is really a wonderful way to avoid misunderstandings and, as we found out in the last few years, to create a team spirit of respect and empathy. Of course this is helpful for any team in any context. Management teams, Project teams, sports teams. What makes the top athletes so special is their eagerness, willingness and readiness to learn and to improve every day. It is such a privilege to work with them.

The MindSonar professionals running the project were Lot Wielders and Jennet Burghard (Netherlands) They were asked to do this again in 2014 (World championship for Eventing), 2016 (Rio for Eventing) and 2018 (World championship in Tryon USA). Look them up in the Registry.